PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. It is good to see you. Just had an excellent meeting with Prime Minister Rudd and his team. Obviously there are very few countries that are closer than the United States and Australia. And Prime Minister Rudd's government, I think, has shown the kind of vision not just domestically but on the international stage that we greatly admire.
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It's really rather remarkable that we're at this place. Not just because it seemed an impossibility with ballsy Hillary leading the polls, or in Australian when Howard was re-elected and some of us considered getting in a leaky raft and heading for Java.
Obama has been elected, he's reversing some repulsive Bush laws and trying to reverse a major economic meltdown by consulting both sides of congress.
Howard sits smug sipping chamomile in Wollstonecraft while Rudd further buries his asinine legacy in - oh, the glorious irony - a cloak of openness and transparency.
And now Obama and K-Rudd are striking up a chummy rapport that looks scarily like the wide-grinned, smirky good times Howard had with Dubya at Camp David.
But how has Obama gone, now that the symbolic 87 days has been reached (symbolic because no one else cares about it and I get in 13days early)?
Obama has struggled to fashion a clear message - is he pessimistic or optimistic about the recession. Bit of flip-flopping there - and that point, about two months in, was when I first realised that he has spin doctors in his ear. They don't have the sway of Karl Rove et alm - See Obama on every mag cover except the most obvious one: O magazine - but his cards were played a little wildly until he started looking stern yet hopeful when he was asked about the economy.
Obama's face can tell a thousand words. Jon Stewart noted Obama hasn't pulled out his 'shut the **** up' face since his deputy made some major gaffes. Through his first 87 days Obama has kept a look of 'I was made for this job' as much as a look that silently yells 'I'll get you, you kids that left me to clean up your unholy mess'.
I listen to the New Yorker's 'Comment' podcast which observed this week that Obama as had it easy from the Republicans as they squabble over the best stance to take on O's stimulus package. Hilariously, most are happy to say it's irresponsible to spend so much cash when the economy (and debt) is swelling under so many GFC pressures. But spending IS at least half the method to getting out of a rut. That's why men got out and dug useless holes in the great depression, only to fill them in again. (Tax cuts are the other half, which just shifts the source of the money to be spent).
And can they complain about overspending when they just unloaded a 3trillion dollar debt onto the next President.
At least Howard isn't sniping at his replacement from the sidelines.
Costello is doing enough sniping for Rudd to feel he has an impotent opposition in common with Obama too.
Lastly: good speeches. Where are they Obama? It's not West Wing enough for me so far. We have only hjad one HOPE CHALLENGE AMERICAN DREAM oration so far!!
Thankfully, the humour and wit is back in the oval office. Obama is razor sharp and can hild journos at bay in a media scrum without missing a chance to make an awfully risky joke now and then. Rudd has some work ahead to keep up with his new buddy if he is still to become Deputy Sherrif.
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